Miguel Cardoso laments 'not good condition of the pitch' despite Mamelodi Sundowns thrashing Jose Riveiro's Orlando Pirates - 'I prefer to play at Lucas Moripe'

Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso has expressed his views on the playing surface at Loftus Versfeld Stadium following Masandawana's victory over Orlando Pirates.

Even though they leveraged their home-ground advantage, thrashing the Buccaneers 4-1 on a muddy surface, Cardoso was dissatisfied with the state of the turf.

The 52-year-old strongly criticised the quality of the pitch at Loftus, even suggesting he would prefer the upcoming matches to be held at Lucas Moripe Stadium instead.

"Immediately when I entered the pitch for the pre-match press conference I said I felt the pitch was not in good condition. That was in the pre-match press conference, not conference, the [tv] interview. Even before knowing what would happen, I said it myself," Cardoso said per iDiski Times.

"For me, the better the quality of the pitch is, the better football you can get out of it. And for our team, for sure, we suffer from pitches like this, we suffer! So I’m not naive or to say when we go play away we have bad pitches, it’s not bad pitches, not everywhere everytime, but in some places, yes, but mostly I spoke on the pitch in Polokwane where we played, that pitch is very tough.

"But also the approach that is done, because I can confess that during the week every day I received a report on what was being done on the pitch. Our team of people, our green keepers, were here every day working on this pitch otherwise it would be even worse," the Portuguese mentor explained. 

"But there are things we don’t control. We don’t control the events that happen here, we don’t control the games that happen here. The stadium is not ours, so it’s not out responsibility the pitch is like this. We fight to have it better, we pay to have it better, so we work on the pitch to have it better. And at the end of the game, I don’t know if you saw I was on the pitch, speaking with the green keeper and he was already explaining to me what kind of work he is starting tomorrow.

“He’s gonna remove all the dry turf, he’s gonna work on it and he’s gonna plant 60kg of new seeds, so we are working on the pitch believe me. At half-time he came to me and asked ‘should I water the pitch’ and I said no because it’s very slippery, so with more water it would’ve been worse," he added. 

"So we work as much as possible for the quality of the pitch, I defend as much as possible the quality of the pitch because we want to play good football, we want to defend a spectacle. I even said to the people from the club, ‘from now on, except the big games’ I prefer to play at Lucas Moripe [Stadium]."

The problem of poor pitches has been a challenge for many teams this season. FNB Stadium also appeared to be less than perfect during the Soweto Derby between Kaizer Chiefs and Pirates last week.

Additionally, Peter Mokaba Stadium is still undergoing pitch maintenance after hosting Makhadzi's One Woman Show in December, while several other stadiums are also in poor condition.

The home win for Downs gave them a nine-point advantage on the PSL table. Pirates are in second place, while Polokwane City leads fourth-placed Kaizer Chiefs by four points.

Sundowns will face off against the in-form TS Galaxy in a league match on Tuesday at Mbombela Stadium.

This presents a significant opportunity for the Brazilians to extend their lead to 12 points over Pirates as the title race intensifies.